The below is
excerpted from a dissertation in process.It is copyright Geoffrey Barto 2000-2002.

The
ideal of redemption in Hugo’s Misérables takes
on a special clarity when contrasted with Flaubert’s Education sentimentale.Particularly at issue are Hugo’s barricades and those of Flaubert, the
one ennobling in defeat, the other mocking in its at least short-term victory.

Both
Hugo and Flaubert were in Paris, of
course, in the midst of the 1848 Revolution.Hugo, however, was a peer of France,
frustrated by the monarchy’s failure to move toward republicanism, but still
clinging to it as a shell into which republicanism could grow.Flaubert, on the other hand, was not
especially partial to any form of government and came into Paris
to see the spectacle.Initially caught
up in the high drama of Paris’
latest show, he soon lost interest.

We have
earlier chronicled Hugo’s comings and goings during the February Revolution as
well as his ideas of government.A few
words need be said of Flaubert, however.We have already noted that Flaubert was not tightly wedded to any
particular form of government.However,
unlike Hugo, open to anything that could be taken as an aristocracy in its
etymological sense, Flaubert was simply skeptical of government in general,
distrusting the whims of kings and the passions of crowds alike:

Though a member of the National Guard during the
Franco-Prussian war, his view of those in power was disgust, both for losing
the war, and for government’s general tendency to limit individual liberty:

In 1848, he had even effectively stated that for him the
only thing that mattered where government was concerned was its relationship
with art – government that interfered with art was bad; government that did not
was indifferent:

All told, Flaubert noticed government when it affected him,
but was more wary of the harm it could do than optimistic about the good it
might accomplish.Thus, on February 23, 1848, Flaubert was in
town not to support or oppose the king, but simply to revel in the silliness
unleashed by people who thought such things mattered.

As
events unfolded, Flaubert did allow himself to get caught up in the moment,
even volunteering for the National Guard and standing watch for a while on a
relatively empty street.And he would
write to Louise Colet of the absolute glee he felt on
seeing the frightened expressions of monarchists watching their world come
crashing down around them:

However, he would share the monarchists’ horror on
witnessing the ransacking of the Tuileries.The king was gone, to be sure, but replaced
by barbarians whose appetite was for destruction and who showed no appreciation
for art and things of beauty.

A few
months later, Flaubert found himself in Paris
standing guard to assure order during parliamentary elections.However, they were postponed for two weeks
and Flaubert returned home.Hugo, for
his part, nearly won a seat though he had not even run.In June he would run and would be handily
elected.

With
the new parliament seated in June, the Ateliers Nationaux
– National Workshops – overseen by Louis Blanc, were eliminated and Paris
found itself again in revolt.This time,
however, the revolt would be put down by the government and the leader of the
suppression, General de Cavaignac, would find himself
at the head of the government in the wake of what we now call the June
Days.As indicated elsewhere, Hugo
himself took part in the suppression, commanding troops and taking down a
handful of barricades.Flaubert,
however, no longer saw the Republic as worth defending on account of the way it
put down its people.Disgusted with the
turn of events and embarrassed that he had allowed himself to be drawn into the
exercise – and further becoming weak with illness – he began planning a trip to
the Orient, having resolved to never again involve himself in politics.

When Flaubert set out to write L'Educationsentimentale, he began by going through archives
and interviewing witnesses to the events of 1848.He visited old sites to get a precise sense
of the places he would be describing.Nonetheless, Flaubert the researcher’s role in the crafting of this
story is secondary to that of the Flaubert who in 1848 witnessed and formed his
own impressions of the time.The folly
of the mob, the vanity of Moreau in running for office - notwithstanding his
aimlessness and detachment, the backstabbing of Dambreuse,
these are Flaubert’s impressions of the era, draped about a skeleton of
fact.Moreau and Flaubert are not
entirely dissimilar, having both headed to the riots for the sake of the
spectacle - to see what the fuss was all about - only to be momentarily taken
in - Flaubert by the idea of serving in the Guard, Moreau by the idea of being
an Assemblyman - only to drift off.Flaubert justified Moreau's absence from or lack of complete
participation in major events as necessary to prevent a weak character from
getting lost among great men and happenings.But it is just as plausible to argue that Hugo, Lamartine,
Ledru-Rollin and others got lost in the mess of 1848,
their momentary dreams of a new order supplanted by yet another government
directed not by the people but by the strongman who had most recently
demonstrated an ability to control them.Sad but true, 1848 for all its promise became the opening act for
Napoleon III.In other words, the banal Frédéric, with his many love interests, momentary
pretensions to importance, etc., characterizes 1848 better than the sound and
fury signifying nothing that seemed so revolutionary at the time; he would risk
fading into the backdrop not because he would be outshone but because he would
blend in so well.

Flaubert's
realist style could only add to the sense of uselessness one gets not only
about Frédéric, but also about the whole enterprise that
was 1848.Narrative is present, plot is
present, but with the narrator effacing himself, the narrative too seems to
fade, events cease to unfold and instead merely happen - there is no outside
force, no destiny, not even the march of history, never mind progress.Flaubert’s portrayal, however, for all its
appearance of detachment, in truth marks a heavy investment in a particular
worldview that he imprinted on most of his works.Flaubert perceived 1848 as a futile, foolish
venture.In denying it narrative
coherence, he denied it meaning and purpose - his detachment implied that there
was little point in being passionate about an event to which he first reacted
passionately, then passionately renounced.

Flaubert further reveals himself by his shaping of events
and characters.Yet here he is again
misleading, using the devices of the realist style to mask his voice, even as
he used its form to amplify his overall view.Flaubert's style was meant to emulate the writing of those historians
who were attempting to study history systematically, not to say
scientifically.Such historians held to
a detached style, believing that insufficient information precluded drawing
conclusions.With sufficient
information, they believed, logical interpretations of history would emerge,
even as the laws of physics seemingly revealed themselves when more and more
experiments were made.However, where
historians avoided passing judgment, allowing dry narrations of events united with
documents to reveal in some small measure a history they felt would naturally
emerge but was not theirs to write, Flaubert used their style knowingly and
deliberately to imply that there was no underlying narrative flow - rather than
that flow being as yet unknowable.In
other words, Flaubert's detached style editorializes as forcefully by its lack
of specific commentary as do Hugo's digressions:it is a marked choice meant to influence what
the reader takes from the work.A proper
analogy would be to the newspaper editor who never publishes unpleasant details
about her preferred candidate for office; the evidence of Flaubert’s view is
sometimes its absence in the text.The
way Flaubert accomplishes this is often subtle, but not always.Considertheranting
of Dambreuse about the 1848
Revolution:

As Flaubert discusses Dambreuse's
panic, then his duplicity with respect to Frédéric,
his opinions of the monarchists become as clear as in the letter to Louise Colet (cited above) in which he described his glee in
watching them suffer when he himself was in Paris during the revolution.The coincidence of Dambreuse’s
panic and Flaubert’s initial delight at the chaos of 1848 reveal that his
choice of how to portray Dambreuse, or for that
matter, the sentiments he attributes to Hussonet,
represent not coldly observed facts but Flaubert's own perceptions of events
and people.But unlike Hugo, who even
notes his role at the barricades in 1848 while discussing those of 1832,
Flaubert deletes himself from the story, suppressing the evidence of possible
sources of bias.Therefore, Flaubert
goes beyond Hugo - if Hugo editorializes, the reader is well aware that it is
his voice speaking.On the other hand,
Flaubert's use of the discours indirect libre takes on the feel of the first person account
cited in an impersonal history - when in fact it is Flaubert's own
creation.Consequently, Flaubert
seemingly leaps off the page for those who have read his correspondence while
even those who have not might begin to tune in to the gap between the
impression of objectivity and its lacking in reality - but at first glance his
telling marks a departure from the omniscient narrator of times past.To avoid being lulled into a sense of
security about Flaubert’s objectivity, we would do well to remember the
forthright narrator of Jacques le fataliste in
order to remind ourselves of the power an author has over a story.But where Diderot
reminds us, Flaubert aims to make us forget.

Flaubert mocks not only political progress but also
mankind's vanity in general, intertwining an aimless life with a useless
revolution – Frédéric returns in his mind to the
brothel and France
returns to absolute government, albeit as Empire, rather than monarchy.On the other hand, Hugo the Romantic reveals
his truest colors at the barricades in Les Misérables,
celebrating doomed heroes, presumably because history was on their side, and
his prophetic view of France
did not end with Napoleon III.

Commercial break. Back in 6 lines:

It should be noted that Hugo’s barricades were those not of
1848 but of 1832.These riots did not
merely fail to establish an enduring government; they didn't even overthrow the
current government.As in 1848, Hugo
wasn’t so sure that revolution should succeed, casting aside the optimism of
1830 in noting:

If the passage questions this revolt, it does not mean that
the republic would never come; only that it was not the right moment.As we know, Hugo responded essentially the
same way in 1848.But still there lurked
in his worldview not merely the possibility, but a sense of inevitability,
about the coming of a republic.Preparing the ground for that day, he offers this advice to the
bourgeoisie:

Notwithstanding that Hugo had stated in 1830 that the July
Revolution had accomplished the transition of France
from England to
America, at
least in the minds of the left (99), at various twists and turns he becomes
less sure.Nonetheless, the confusions
about France’s
progress more than anything mirror Hugo’s vision – good ideas whose time will
come, but not yet.It is for this reason
that a few days of futile clashes will yield heroes such as young Gavroche, elevated from scamp to hero as he demonstrates a
rarely seen courage for the cause.Among
Les Amis de l’ABC,
we see the cynical Grantaire rescued from his
indifference to the world - Enjolras' death seemingly
saves two souls.Eponine,
for her part, finds redemption in death, having saved her beloved Marius, and
thus risen from a bothersome peasant girl, daughter of thieves and scoundrels,
to a minor heroine in a minor revolution but a central character in the human
drama of the moment.Marius, too, finds
a sort of redemption, discovering principle when he had gone to the barricades
only out of despair at the loss of Cosette, and with
the intention of dying there.For him,
the barricades represent a certain maturing not unlike Hugo's gradual move away
from first Napoleon, then monarchy.Marius will of course return to his monarchist uncle to recover before
the two reconcile, something that happened in 1848 though for less noble reasons.

The most important redemption at the barricades is that of
Jean Valjean.Once the jealous father, he renounces Cosette
and his possessiveness, just as he had moved beyond his anger and criminal
past.With the kindness of M. Myriel, Valjean knew redemption
from without through a representative of God.The first of Valjean’s risks and sacrifices –
stepping forward to save Fauchelèvent and Fantine, and to absolve Champmathieu
– expressly involved self-sacrifice for principle or redemption from within. The saving of Marius marks the next step of
his development, sacrifice for others.But Valjean’s rescue of Marius will ultimately
prove to be his truest redemption.Here,
he steels himself to losing someone he loves, and realizes that this he must do
to show the full extent of his love.As
the anger, and we might add fear, he felt on seeing Cosette’s
blotter[*]
dissipated, he knew what he had to do, and he acted.Valjean knew full
well that saving Marius could mean losing Cosette
while his disappearance would allow Valjean to “keep”
her.As it happens, saving Marius does,
in the end, allow him to hold to Cosette, and even
more strongly as the selfless father whose role he had taken.With Marius’ scarf, presented by Thénardier[†],
Valjean is redeemed, though only for the shortest of
moments before his death.

What is
significant in Hugo and Flaubert is the degree to which their political
approaches are present in the works.Flaubert portrays meandering foolishness, Hugo the triumph of the human
spirit.Flaubert’s foolishness goes hand
in hand with his pessimism about government and society.Hugo’s triumph similarly follows his belief
in redemption and progress.Hugo’s
triumph is particularly interesting in that it is not political, but
personal.Valjean’s
acts – and Gavroche’s, Enjolras’,
Eponine’s, etc. all speak to the betterment of
humanity in a general sense.But since
for Hugo, the republic is the result of the spreading of the light of wisdom,
this is fitting and proper.Among
politicians, by contrast, we must consider Hugo’s presentations of Napoleon and
Louis-Philippe alongside his own narrative – the first two were great in their
own time, and Hugo explains and understands their failures.But Hugo ultimately rises above these two –
though he would never show the necessary skill in calculating the right
political move for the moment, he stands alongside the heroes of his barricades
as both a prophet of things to come.

[*] A writing surface designed
to absorb ink as it bleeds through paper.Valjean learned of Marius when he saw the
imprint of a letter Cosette had written to him.

[†] When Valjean
rescues Marius, carrying him through the sewers of Paris, Thénardier
sees him drop a scarf and presents that scarf to Marius as proof of Valjean’s attempt to abduct him.However, Marius recognizes the scarf as proof
that Valjean was the unknown man who had saved his
life.This reveals Thénardier’s
treachery and simultaneously voids the obligation Marius feels to him for
rescuing his (Marius’) father, while transferring a new obligation to Valjean.